Gender context modulation on the self‐enhancement effect of vocal attractiveness evaluation

Abstract

People evaluated their own voices as sounding more attractive than others rated their voices (i.e., self-enhancement effect from the perspective of the rater, termed "SE_rater"), and people also rated their own voices as more attractive than the voices of others (i.e., self-enhancement effect from the perspective of the voice, termed "SE_voice"). The aim of the present study is to explore whether the gender context (i.e., same-sex and opposite-sex rating context) could influence the SE effect of voice attractiveness evaluation. Male and female participants were asked to rate the attractiveness of their own voices and other participants' voices, either in a same-sex session or an opposite-sex session. The results demonstrated both the SE_rater and SE_voice effect in the same-sex and oppositesex contexts, for both male and female. More importantly, we found that the SE_rater for the male voices was significantly greater than that for the female voices in the same-sex context whereas no such difference was found in the opposite-sex context. In addition, the SE_voice effect in men was larger in the same-sex context than that in the oppositesex context whereas the SE_voice in women was smaller in the same-sex context than that in the opposite-sex context. These findings indicated that the self-enhancement effect of vocal attractiveness was modulated by the gender context.

Neural Effects of One’s Own Voice on Self-Talk for Emotion Regulation

“…Individuals process their own voices differently from others' voices in ways that lead them to perceive their own voice as more attractive [10,11]. This attractiveness can be explained by vocal implicit egoism, a form of self-enhancement driven by the familiarity effect and self-positivity bias [12]. Phonetic realizations of one's own voice significantly shape phonological contrasts, leading to more accurate recognition of words in one's own voice compared to the voices of others [13].…”